Anriëtte de Ridder
Abigail Hopley was one of the session speakers at this year’s winter school in Stellenbosch. She started off by quoting the statistics of young people leaving the church as well as the reasons for it, from the book “You lost me” by David Kinnaman. She also showed a video clip of David Kinnaman where he requests that we engage in a conversation with young adults who have left the church.
She also described how social media influences the identity of the youth and explained why we it is important that we think about identity and social media when we work with the youth.
Abigail helped me remember that social media and media influences are not just a tool to reach young people but fundamentally changes the way the youth act, feel and think today.